Millers Bow Out as Stiles Goes On

Reflections on the two greatest shows in women’s college basketball, one having just passed into history, while the other, this tournament’s Miss Showtime, rocks and rolls her way to the Sweet 16:

Georgia’s identical Miller twins, seniors Kelly and Coco, reached the Final Four in 1999 at San Jose as sophomores, but were bounced out of the tournament Sunday by Missouri in a 78-65 stunner.

Thus, Georgia, having reached the Final Four five times, remains the NCAA’s best program never to have won a national championship.

A lot of WNBA coaches were attentive to Southwest Missouri State’s Jackie Stiles’ matchup with Coach Vivian Stringer’s aggressive Rutgers defense Monday. WNBA people were wondering how, at 5 feet 7, Stiles would match up with pro-type defenders.

So much for that question. Stiles, the all-time NCAA scoring leader, amassed 32 points, 17 in the last seven minutes, to lead her 27-5 team to a 60-53 victory. Her season average is 30.7 points, and no one else averaged 26.

Stiles and Southwest Missouri play Duke (30-3) on Saturday in the West Regional semifinals at Spokane, Wash.

Here’s how one WNBA coach, Sonny Allen of the Sacramento Monarchs, sees Stiles’ draft prospects:

“Shooting is the one big weakness in the WNBA and that’s something she does very well.

“And it’s not just the fact she’s got that great touch, it’s the fact she’s also a tough, hard-nosed gym rat. We have the 14th pick; I don’t expect we’ll have a chance to get her.”

Stiles’ 89.3% free-throw shooting ranks sixth in the NCAA. She sometimes goes weeks without missing from the line. Twenty-four times in 32 games, she has been either perfect or missed only one shot from the line.

She’s shooting 50.8% from the three-point arc, second to Notre Dame’s Alicia Ratay at 53.8%, although that’s unofficial. When the regular season ended, Stiles was one three-point shot short of eligibility for consideration.

Against Rutgers, she made eight of 16 shots and 16 of 19 free throws.

Still, Southwest Missouri State’s one-woman gang can’t go on forever. Look for Duke to close the show Saturday.

The best of the Sweet 16 games figures to be Purdue-Texas Tech in the Mideast at Birmingham, Ala. The bad news: The winner gets Tennessee.

In the West Regional, the Southwest Missouri State-Duke winner gets the Washington-Oklahoma winner.

At Denver in the Midwest, if Notre Dame gets by troublesome Utah, it meets the Vanderbilt-Iowa State winner.

Vanderbilt has arguably the most efficient starting five in the tournament, including the nation’s best shooter, center Chantelle Anderson at 73.1%, and a mesmerizing sophomore point guard in Ashley McElhiney. But there isn’t much depth and the Commodores can’t last much longer without getting in foul trouble.

At Pittsburgh, in the East, Louisiana Tech has quietly built a 16-game winning streak since losing Jan. 7 to Connecticut, 71-55. The Panthers figure to get by Georgia’s conqueror, Missouri, but then there’s a likely rematch with Connecticut.

Final Four picks: Connecticut, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Duke.

TIDBITS

The Miller twins finished their college careers with uncannily close point totals. Kelly had 2,177, Coco 2,131.

Tennessee, by a wide margin, won the attendance championship, averaging 15,510 for its games at 25,000-seat Thompson-Boling Arena. The other five-digit finishers were Texas Tech, 12,660; Connecticut, 12,306; and Iowa State, 11,336. Fourteen programs averaged 5,000-plus. The Pacific 10 Conference leader was Oregon, 13th at 5,150. Washington was 18th, 4,185.

Among the turnstile leaders, women’s attendance is up dramatically since 1996, when not one program averaged five-digit crowds. Connecticut led that year at 8,183. However, the number of programs with average crowds exceeding 5,000 has remained pretty much the same--a dozen in 1996, 14 this season.

UCLA, with a 6-23 team, finished 47th at 2,046. USC wasn’t in the top 50.

Insiders at Oregon attach some significance to the fact that Athletic Director Bill Moos didn’t issue a vote of confidence to his coach, Jody Runge, after her disgruntled players met with him to air gripes recently. Runge, who has two years left on her contract, is supposed to meet with Moos this week.

The Sparks’ Latasha Byears, arrested in Sacramento March 1 and charged with driving while under the influence of marijuana, got a new Sacramento County court date Monday. She’s to be arraigned April 10.